"Too Good" [ft. Rihanna]

In the weeks leading up to Views’ release, Drake leaked a cover of Jackson Browne’s/Nico’s “These Days.” It can’t be coincidence that the phrase is repeated throughout Views (“If they don’t have a story these days, they’ll make one" on “9,” and “These days I don’t talk about them days like I miss ‘em” on “U With Me?”). The effect establishes these songs, and this album, in an ever-present tense: Whatever turmoil Drake is rapping about on Views, it’s still going on now, it’s still relevant, it’s still happening.

Fitting, then, that the phrase pops up on Views highlight, “Too Good,” a duet with Rihanna: “These days I don’t know how to talk to you.” What’s funny is turning on any radio to hear “Work” from Rihanna’s ANTI. “Work” is about needing to become emotionally invested in someone and labor toward their desires and needs in order to establish real intimacy. It was mature in that sense. “Too Good” swings the opposite way, with Drake flatly admitting, “I’m way too good to you” before Rihanna answers him when they duet later on in the song. Declaring you’re “too good” for someone suggests that all the work has been done, usually by you. Notice the subtle difference of declaring you’re too good “to” someone, as opposed to “for.” “For” implies there is no more work that can be done; “to” implies no one’s appreciating the work.

“Too Good” is a vestige of the same creative juices that flowed through “Work”’s Caribbean-inspired polyrhythm. (A similar influence is all over Views.) Drake clumsily interprets a Popcaan song that nineteen85 (of dvsn) ends up sampling anyway, but give him some credit for embracing his fake patois. This is one of a few songs on Views that benefits from his unabashed shamelessness in the same way that texting someone at 4 a.m. and claiming you did it on accident is shameless. (“I wanna benefit from the friendship/I wanna get the late night message” is the Drake-iest moment here.) People always feel unappreciated and overworked in their relationships, and here Drake and Rihanna nail that dynamic as only they can—mixing blunt neediness with lust.